中国传统节日饮食文化的符号学解读

Abstract

Traditional Chinese festival food culture is an important component of the cultural system of the Chinese nation. The symbolic meanings and cultural values it embodies reflect profound historical accumulation and social identity. From the perspective of semiotic theory, this paper regards traditional Chinese festival foods as an integrated cultural symbolic system. It analyzes the mechanisms of meaning production and cultural expression from aspects such as food forms, colors, and numerical symbolism. At the theoretical level, this study explores the symbolic meanings of festival foods and how their material forms are transformed into cultural symbols. At the practical level, it selects several major traditional festivals—including the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Lantern Festival—and conducts a detailed analysis of the symbolic connotations of their representative foods. At the level of social function, the paper further elaborates on the important roles that festival foods play in constructing family identity, forming collective memory, maintaining ritual norms, and promoting intercultural communication between China and other countries. The study argues that traditional Chinese festival foods not only possess material value but also construct and transmit cultural meanings through symbolic mechanisms. Through forms, colors, and linguistic homophones, festival foods form a stable symbolic system that reinforces national identity and cultural memory within traditional Chinese festivals. This research helps deepen the understanding of the cultural connotations of Chinese traditional festivals and provides references for the contemporary dissemination of traditional Chinese food culture and for cross-cultural communication between China and other countries. Keywords: traditional festivals; food culture; semiotics; symbolism; cultural transmission.